It’s seen prominently throughout Siegel Suites’ advertising in Las Vegas: “Live Here. Eat Free.” The free-food concept is simple. Daily food vouchers for a meal at the Golden Grill at downtown’s Gold Spike—which Siegel Suites owns—are given to tenants who pay their rent on time. Stay a week and it’s five vouchers; two weeks, 10.

The program will also soon expand to the Barcelona hotel-casino, one of Siegel’s recent acquisitions, when that site’s restaurant is remodeled later this year.

As altruistic as free food may sound, it’s still a solid marketing tactic. Siegel Suites residents are introduced to a Siegel gaming property via the token hot dog or grilled cheese sandwich plate. Of course, giving away food and drink to lure in gamblers is as Vegas as neon. And it’s just one of many ideas that owner Stephen Siegel likely has for putting bodies in front of slots at the Gold Spike.

Siegel and his investors have put some serious cash into the Gold Spike, about $5 million and counting. It’s an effort that seems to have gone beyond a labor of love to more of a labor of, well, labor. Underneath every decayed layer peeled back at the old property, Siegel admits, lies another layer that could eat up more time and money.

The trials of renovating an old property have pushed back the project’s completion about six months, to the first quarter of this year.

The Golden Grill has been updated with a modern-diner look. The menu is standard American-grill fare: burgers, wraps and a $4.99 prime rib. But the Siegel Suites vouchers are tied to a limited menu tucked between salt and pepper shakers and sugar packets. The menu has a single offering for each day. Items tend to be less exciting—chicken fingers, BLTs and hot dogs to grilled cheese sandwiches and spaghetti with marinara—but still perhaps worth the price of a bus fare.

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